


Children of Dionysus -- Until the Dawn (Part 4)

by meretriciousanddelicious



Series: Children of Dionysus [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: "Your word is law here.", "shut up and fuck me", Blow Job, Breakfast, Comfort, Confessing love, Dirty Talk, Dominance, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Frottage, Genderfluid, I can't think when you get naked, John makes interesting noises, M/M, Morse Code, Most of the people who had seen that smile were dead, Oral Sex, Possessiveness, Profession of Love, Prostate Massage, Snuggling, Triggers, an erection he could club bad guys with, anal penetration, chasing nightmares away, cooking breakfast, deduction as foreplay, deferred ejaculation, deferred pleasure, genderfluidity, he could feel the edges of the wound, never take the first cab!, preparing for sex and/or espionage, scratch marks, the god of my idolatry, there will never be a time when I don't need you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-30
Updated: 2013-01-30
Packaged: 2017-11-27 11:55:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/661725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meretriciousanddelicious/pseuds/meretriciousanddelicious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>POSSIBLE SERIES SPOILERS.  This takes place 2 nights after Part 3, 4 nights after the start of this series.  John's a cautious man and violent when the situation calls for it... but is his heart ready and able to handle Sherlock and all his damage?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Children of Dionysus -- Until the Dawn (Part 4)

**Author's Note:**

> Personal head-canon: Sherlock has eidetic memory. Although he has *alluded* to intentionally forgetting information he is not actually capable of doing so. He only has full control over what memory he accesses while awake... mostly.

Someone would have had to watch John Watson very closely indeed to see what happened next, two days later. Fortunately no one had ever watched him that closely.

No one but Sherlock.

It was a midday trip to the supermarket; he was wandering the aisles with nothing really in mind. He checked his phone absently when the text message alert rang.

*leave your window open to the jungle and you invite in a lion*

John's head hung down over the phone, reading it again. He blinked... and his eyes widened. A quick blush lit the very tops of his cheeks and vanished almost instantly.

He took a breath, released it slowly, and continued his meandering pace.

Much later John would realize he'd never moved so carefully or deliberately before, not even in a minefield. Face blank, every gesture nonchalant, he picked out his selected groceries. Stir fry ingredients; a package of chicken breasts; bacon and eggs. A few days' food for a conscientious bachelor alone.

The only thing that might have lifted an eyebrow was his slow stroll through the small hardware section where he picked up a box of nails. But he *was* in a tiny rundown flat now. Perhaps some few repairs were needed...

He paid for it all out of his dwindling cash, wrestled his bags outside, and piled into the second cab to come up. As the car pulled away from the curb John stared into space for a long moment, then scrubbed at his face and sighed.

"Tired, sir?" asked the cabbie airily.

"Not been sleeping well," John answered, voice gruff. The man seemed nice enough but there was no way to know for sure. He never really trusted them after all that...

That seemed to be enough interaction; the other man let him be.

John lapsed back into thought, remembering. He'd shot that other cabbie in what some might call cold-blood. It hadn't felt cold at all but boiling hot with a strange savage joy. Protective of him, even then. Defending him from that cabbie's lying mouth and his little pill bottles. Defending him even from his own fey nature.

And proud to do it. For him. For...

He wouldn't let himself think the name. He covered his inadvertent shudder by picking up his bags and organizing them on his lap. His face stayed calm and empty.

When he got into the flat he did things mechanically. Groceries in the refrigerator and cabinets, first. Then he got out the nails and went into his closet. He had two extra quilts; the kitchen window was small enough he could cover it with a towel. Carefully and quietly he nailed up his makeshift black-out curtains over his closed window shades. On the bedroom window he left the bottom and sides of the quilt hanging free. He pushed a wooden chair up against the loose edge to pin it to the wall, nodded, then put the chair back in the corner of the room.

He turned on some lights in the darkened flat, put his tools away, took a hot shower. He leaned against the cool tile and looked down at himself, marveling. There, his silver scar. There, his greeny-gold lovebite. Between them and down the length of his torso, his cock growing hard at the thoughts running through his head. 

Sherlock, he breathed.

When he was clean he turned the water to ice cold and stood in it for a long vicious moment until his mind cleared again.

He toweled off briskly and dove back into his closet. More sleep pants to walk about in. Good -- the ones that were too long for him were clean; he lay them and a spare robe out on the dresser. Here for the nightstand: fresh towels (2), small bottle of lubricant. A quick glance at the clock. Two hours until nightfall at this time of year but he won't come until full dark. John shook a caplet out of a bottle of pills, broke it in half with his fingernails, hesitated, then broke a half into quarters. He got a glass of water out of the dark kitchen to swallow the tiny fragment down down.

He filled the glass again and brought it to his nightstand. What was left? Ahhh...

He reached in again, this time to the very back of the closet. The cricket bat he pulled out and laid over the seat of the wooden chair in the corner.

Satisfied, he turned off the lights, curled up in the dark with Sherlock's pillow, and took a short, deep nap.

John's eyes snapped open at 10PM almost exactly on the dot. He smiled gently; it was not a smile the world would have recognized on Watson's face. Most of the people who had seen that smile were dead.

Quietly he turned on the night lamp and slid out of bed... and piled his dirty laundry in his place, arranging it loosely in the shape of a sleeping body, covering it with the sheet and blankets. He used the bathroom and checked himself in the mirror, not meeting his own eyes. He lit a single candle in the kitchen and turned out the lamp. Through all this he moved almost noiselessly. In the very dim light he twisted up the quilt that was over the bedroom window until it was one long sheath and pinned it behind the wooden chair, out of the way. 

He unlocked the window latch (smelling ever so faintly of olive oil), then let the shade drop down again. Then he took a seat on the wooden chair and laid the bat across his lap.

Very good. His eyes were soon accustomed to the low light; his ears were perked for every sound. In this state of preparation he felt no boredom; he could have waited forever like a stone statue and been perfectly content. But he knew the man. He knew his rhythms. In some things, even Sherlock Holmes could be predictable.

He didn't have long to wait.

The slight creak of weight on the cast-iron drainpipe. The hiss of a shoe across the brick ledge. The whisper of tweed dragging on the wall, then the faint squeak of the window being urged open from outside.

The room sighed. John swallowed hard and gripped the bat.

Sherlock flowed through the window, perfect and unmistakable, all angles and smooth grace, touching down as lightly as a bird onto the thin carpet, shutting the window behind him. First his regal head glancing towards the light in the kitchen, then to the lump in the bed... and then he turned fully and pinned the waiting Watson with his gaze.

The delicious curve of his lips lifted in his ragged smile.

"Talk me through it," he whispered. John leaned forward, tilting his chair to free the quilt-curtain to fall across the window, cutting off outside eyes.

"I got a text," John answered softly, feeling as if he hadn't spoken for years. "A text can mean anything or nothing. I thought it came from you but I couldn't be sure."

"And if it was me?"

"I wanted to be ready."

Sherlock glanced around again -- the water glass, the towels, the robe.

"And if it wasn't?"

John raised the cricket bat slightly. "The same."

Sherlock looked at the bat for a moment, then back to the man. "Do you still think you need it?"

"That depends."

"On?"

"On what you do when I do this."

John set the bat on the floor, walked over to the taller man and wound both hands in his dark curls to pull him down. When their lips met the last four days of daydreams and waiting and night urges blew away like chaff in the wind. Sherlock's arms wrapped around him, warming him and pressing him close.

"Satisfactory?" he whispered when the warrior finally let him up for air.

"Getting there," he growled. "Stay put."

Sherlock watched, bemused, as John locked the window and then covered it up, securing the quilt with the chair to block out any possibility of light escaping. He padded silently to the kitchen and came back bearing the candle; its light from the dresser was enough to render each man perfectly visible to the other without hurting their eyes. John's pupils were so dilated in emotion he probably could not have tolerated much more, thought Sherlock. His normally grey eyes looked black and slick, the eyes of a hunter.

"Aren't you cold? It seems a bit cold in here..." Sherlock murmured.

"Not as cold as the shower I took earlier. Not as cold as my bed without you in it."

Sherlock gazed down at his lover who stood stone-still, looking back up at him. Slowly he removed his scarf and tossed it on the chair. His long jacket slid off his shoulders; he turned it around and settled it over John's half-naked frame.

"You took a cold shower?"

"I was... aroused. I wanted to save it for you." Watson snorted. "If it hadn't been you just now I probably could have beaten them to death with *that* instead."

"A man of many talents..."

"I've missed you," John said simply. "I've wanted you. I've needed you. I've hurt myself to remind me it was real, and it's not been enough." Unconsciously his hand slid over the lovebite again.

"I know." 

Sherlock began to unfasten the buttons of his shirt. John stood there looking like a lost child in his over-sized coat.

"I *need* something, Sherlock. Something more than a bite. Something my heart can hold onto."

Sherlock nodded. "I know." He dropped his shirt away and moved closer to John, both of them now sharing his jacket's warmth.

John seemed to thaw somewhat. "I just don't know if I can do this."

"How do you mean?" Sherlock kissed his forehead lightly, then the hollow of one temple, then the curve of his cheek. He smiled when he felt John's fingertips on the waistband of his pants.

"Is this a game you're playing, Sherlock? What are we doing here?"

"Making love, I had hoped..." Now kissing across his jaw, to the tip of his chin.

"Is it? Is it love?" John's breathing was faster.

"What else could it be?" He nibbled John's lower lip gently.

"I don't know, and it scares me. No, don't --" he said when Sherlock's fingers moved to replace his on his zipper. "Don't get naked now; I can't think when you do."

Sherlock drew back and looked into his eyes for a long moment. "We don't have to. Let me take off my shoes and we'll lay down where it's warm."

John moved away, shrugging the jacket onto the chair. He rounded the foot of the bed and pulled back the covers, sweeping the laundry back into the basket. Sherlock tucked his shoes and socks under the bed, exactly where they'd been four nights ago.

Then they slid under the sheets from opposite sides, like an old married couple. Sherlock tangled the shorter man up in his embrace, enclosing him, tucking John's head under his chin, knowing that sometimes people found it easier to say things when not meeting someone else's eyes. "Talk to me," he breathed.

"I think I'm confused."

"You weren't, the night I came back."

"I didn't have time to be. I just wanted you so badly."

"And you don't want me as badly tonight?"

"Don't *fence* with me, Sherlock!" His voice was unexpectedly ragged. "You don't know what I'm feeling right now."

Sherlock tightened his hold in unconscious response to the pain he heard. 

"You may be right. I *don't* know. But I'd like to. And I'd like to understand it, and you."

John was trembling; Sherlock could feel his tears against the flesh of his throat.

"It's just... I gave you everything."

"... do you regret it?"

John sighed softly.

"I just feel... empty."

Sherlock inched down on the mattress until he could press his forehead to John's.

"Who are you?"

"John Watson." Despite himself, his lips quirked on one side.

"Who am I?"

"Sherlock Holmes."

"Where are we?"

"Here in my bed."

"And what am I doing?"

"You're holding me."

Sherlock exhaled slowly. "You came to me in a dream, you know. Two days ago. Maybe it was a hallucination. I hadn't slept for a long time."

"Did I?"

"Yes you did. You did things that made me uncomfortable."

"Oh?" Now John looked at him, his soft gray eyes almost normal.

"You got me naked, and yourself too. Then you got me hard, and made me look in the mirror at myself... at us. I don't like seeing myself like that."

"No?"

"No. But it was better with you there."

"And then what did I do?" His hand crept up and cradled the back of his lover's finely-shaped head.

"You put me into my bed, and you sat down beside me... and you told me to jack off."

Sherlock's use of the vernacular startled a single laugh out of him; meeting his eyes again confirmed how serious he was on the issue.

"I'm sorry," John said. "So what did you do?"

"I did it. ... I never had before."

"Never?"

"Not like that. Not ever in any sort of light. Whenever I tried before it was always in pitch dark. I would try not to think about what I was doing."

"Christ," John whispered. "How could anyone come like that?"

"Exactly."

Sherlock gazed quietly into John's eyes; maybe the doctor couldn't see the full extent of the damage yet, but he could feel the edges of the wound.

Now it was John's turn to pull him close, to hide Sherlock's head against his shoulder. "And did you?" he whispered.

"Yes," Sherlock answered just as softly. "You were there, and you were touching my face. I wasn't afraid."

Without a word Watson was urging him onto his back on the mattress, covering him possessively as if his own body was a shield against all the world's evils.

"Just because I may seem nonchalant now... it doesn't mean I'm not scared," Sherlock admitted. "But I know you, and I trust you. I know you won't hurt me."

"I won't let anyone hurt you." John's breath was hot and sweet on his cheek. 

Sherlock wound one leg over John's thigh, holding him close.

"There will never be a time when I don't need you, John."

"Is need enough, Sherlock?"

He hesitated. "I'm not sure what you're asking."

"I need to *know*. I need to hear it. I need to know if you love me."

Sherlock sighed and moved his head, to meet John's gaze.

"I can't tell you what I myself don't know. No - wait!" Quick as a snake he caught John's wrist and the small of his back, not letting him run away.

"John... don't. Don't leave me," he whispered.

The man in his arms relaxed only slightly. His grey eyes were wary and full of pain.

"John -- I have no frame of reference. I know that I feel... many things for you, about you, because of you. I don't know if they are 'love'."

"Like what?"

Sherlock let go his wrist in order to cradle his cheek. "Many things I've not felt before. When you're gone, I want you with me. When you're with me, I want you close to me. I find myself wanting to touch you... your face, your hair, your skin. I don't mind you in my personal space; it's oddly comforting.

"I feel... protective of you. When you smile or when you cry -- I get this odd sensation in my stomach. I want you to be happy; I've never cared about anyone else's happiness before.

"I couldn't picture my life without you in it anymore. I feel safer than I've ever felt in my life.

"And when someone hurts you, it tears something open inside me. I've never had the urge for wholesale violence and destruction, until you were threatened."

He took a deep breath. "I want you. Sexually." John nodded solemnly, knowing what the admission must cost him. "But more than that. I want to sleep with you in my bed and wake up with you in the morning. I see the world so differently through your eyes."

Sherlock bit his lip thoughtfully, then corrected himself. 

"I see a world in your eyes.

"That last phone call before I had to jump... I cried. I truly cried for the first time in decades. It caused me unbearable pain to have to hurt you like that. The only thing that could have driven me to go through with it was the knowledge that life with you dead would be a far greater agony.

"Love is a word so many people throw about blithely. Yet the things I feel for you are anything but simple or shallow.

"If feeling like this is called 'love'... then I love you, John Watson."

The tension in the other man's frame melted away like a spring frost in the sun. His sudden lithe grace, the way he curved longingly to meet Sherlock's body -- he felt a blush rise in his cheeks.

"Say it again," John commanded, eyes predatory and eager once more.

"I love you, John," he whispered softly, then quirked his lips and added, "I am yours. You are mine."

In the next moment the young doctor had slipped out of his grip to straddle his waist, kissing him so deeply it seemed to pierce him to the quick. Sherlock folded his long arms around John, coming to realize that the odd feeling in his midsection was tenderness and desire.

"Is it warm in here, do you think?" he managed at last.

"We're wearing too many clothes," moaned John. He rolled quickly to one side, undoing his sleep pants and pulling them off in the same smooth motion, then he was back spreading Sherlock's knees to lovingly unfasten his trousers.

The young man growled when Sherlock shifted his hips, fixing him with a cautioning look. As much a lion as I ever was, thought Sherlock; he reached up to caress the strong shoulders looming over him.

Feeling his pants open and slide away was as delicious as any sensation Sherlock could remember -- now naked and vulnerable as a newborn. He *should* be feeling terrified. He *should* be shrinking away from his own aroused nudity and all its ramifications. But John was here... John was with him, on him... He drew in a shuddering gasp.

Now John was kneeling between his legs, the inside of his thighs against Sherlock's buttocks. When he leaned forward again it brought their groins into contact, a connection that caused a sweet surge of electricity through their nerves.

Sherlock retaliated by moving his long hands down and wrapping them firmly around the two erections, holding them against each other. The sensation made his toes curl.

"You're touching yourself," murmured John.

"I'm touching *you*," Sherlock answered. "My parts just happened to be in the way."

"I want you so much... but I've no idea of what we should do first. I want all of it. All of you."

"Well, the obvious question," managed Holmes with a calm he didn't truly possess, "is how many times can you go in a night?"

"If you'd asked me that ten years ago, the answer would have been 'until I pass out'. These days it may be two, or three perhaps? What about you?"

"I honestly have no idea," he mused. "I'm willing to try, though."

"Now *that* could be a fun game," said John, the animal gleam in his eyes heating Sherlock's blood. "How many times can I make Sherlock come?"

"I know a better game," his lover answered, and after a brief but exciting struggle the long pale man had the upper hand with Watson pinned to the mattress and flushed to the base of his throat.

"This one is called 'Make John make the interesting noises'." Then he lowered his mischievous head and licked the tendons of the doctor's neck. The resulting low groan he produced sang in Sherlock's veins.

Slowly and casually Sherlock worked his way down, John's body burning like a brand in his grip. With trial and error across his collarbones and the very tops of his pectorals he learned how to tune Watson's tension. By the time his mouth enfolded one of John's hard little nipples, his mind was already writing the notes of the nocturne.

John curled in on himself helplessly, surrounding the source of his pleasure. Sherlock gave him no rest; trailing his mouth back and forth between his nipples, laving one and working the other with his clever fingers, keeping it tight and aching.

John struggled to breathe. In mere instants before he was sure he'd come through just that stimulation alone (and what a sexy novelty it might be), his lover shifted downwards, caressing his quivering abdomen with a touch carefully too firm to tickle him.

Watson forced a few deep breaths. "You're playing me like a violin," he accused.

"Absolutely," replied Holmes shamelessly. "Like a John Hamish Watson, more rare and fine than a Stradivarius... and more responsive... with a purer sound..."

Now his lips on John's navel, his fingertips in the hollow where John's thighs joined his body, pressing him there to spread him wider, the tension driving him out of his mind.

John bit the heel of his palm and groaned.

Then Sherlock's hot mouth on his thighs, his thumbs tracing the creases between the back of his legs and the globes of his ass before cupping them firmly and raising his hips without a sign of effort... so powerful...

"Christ, you're gonna make me come," he managed.

"Oh yes," assured his wicked lover, "... eventually."

Sherlock freed his right hand then and took John's cock in a sudden firm grip, squeezing it just below the head. John hissed between clenched teeth, hips bucking in surprise. He grabbed Sherlock's arm in both hands and tried to move it (either to release his hold or thrust further into it, he couldn't have said) but Sherlock's muscles were set like granite. Helplessly he felt himself lose control, sobbing softly at the power of his orgasm... but he couldn't actually come. After a few moments the sensation burned away and he collapsed on his pillow, a light sweat breaking out all over his skin.

His lover released him slowly, then shook his hand sharply to get some feeling back into the fingertips. "I'd always wondered if that would work," he said in tones of satisfaction.

"What... the hell... did you just do to me?"

"Prevented you from ejaculation. You should still have felt much the same as a regular orgasm, according to reports, but you wouldn't require a refractory period."

Watson stared at him.

"I read it on a website once, looking for other biological information," Holmes continued, somewhat embarrassed. "It... didn't hurt, did it?"

John blinked. "No, just felt unusual. Unexpected."

Eyes full of a contrition Watson believed to be mostly spurious, Sherlock bent his head and licked the beads of sweat off one thigh.

"But you're ready to keep going now, aren't you?" he whispered slyly.

"Yes please."

"That's my man..." he crooned. He ran his lips down John's still-hard shaft and Watson melted. Feeling incredibly light-headed he watched Sherlock take him into his mouth, that quick-silver tongue tracing laps around his tip, the blue-green cat eyes flickering up to read his reaction.

He sank his hands into his friend's curls. "I love it, Sherlock. You feel so good..." Encouraged, he took him deeper, easing him down his throat and slowly back out again. Probably he thinks these are *quite* interesting noises, John mused. He traced the sea-shell curve of each delicate ear under his fingers and tried to keep his self-control.

Sherlock's hands again, urging him wider, settling him deeper into the mattress. Holmes reached up, searching, and made a move as if to disengage but Watson was already passing him the bottle from the night-stand.

"Go ahead," he whispered weakly. "I want you to."

Wordlessly Sherlock poured the lubricant into one palm, coating the fingers of the other. He pressed his dripping thumbpad to his lover's tight passage, rubbing it gently, his mouth always attending its work.

John bore down into his touch, hands cupping Sherlock's head, urging him silently for something he could barely realize he desired.

But he sighed and quivered all over at the slow intrusion of Sherlock's index finger. When it seated deep inside him at the last joint he groaned despite himself.

Gently Sherlock curled that digit, lightly stroking that firm place inside him, taking more into his throat as if trying to get his lips and fingertip to meet through the medium of John's body. John himself was shuddering with the effort of holding still -- movement in any direction seemed to throw off sparks of sensation hotter than any he'd ever felt.

Then for one sweet instant Sherlock's nose brushed his abdomen; he rested fully inside his man's warm wet throat. A languid backstroke now, laved again with the tongue destroying his sanity. The hidden fingertip described a matching circle delicately...

"Oh god, Sherlock --" he managed. The sheets would burst into flame at any moment...

Sherlock gazed up at him, nodding slightly. Watson felt like nothing human anymore; just a shifting container of molten lava.

The quake in his taut thighs warned him, although he was sure his lover knew already. Still, to be polite...

"Sherlock, I'm going to come," he somehow whispered quite clearly. Such an understatement, as completely new nerves were awoken and throbbed in waves, tightening on that core Sherlock was reaching from both sides.

The hand still in Sherlock's hair remained as gentle as ever but the other flexed into a claw and tore at the sheets desperately -- the orgasm picked him up and flung him out of himself, there was no other way to describe it. One of the rolling surges forced Sherlock's finger out of him and his passage closed with a distant burst of raw pleasure unspeakable in its intensity. Deaf and blind, all he could feel was Sherlock's mouth and his cock in an endless circuit, but he couldn't have reliably told where he ended and his beloved began.

Many minutes later he came back to himself.

"Did I... did I actually black out?"

"Le petit mort indeed," agreed the deep velvet voice against his earlobe. "Long enough that I was able to clean up without waking you." A note of amusement. "You were still breathing so I thought you'd be okay."

"Oh Christ," Watson murmured shakily.

"You keep saying that... do you think someone else is here?"

"Only the god of my idolatry."

John gathered him close and kissed him deeply, tasting himself.

"Did you manage to swallow?"

"Of course."

"And I missed it by fainting like a little girl," he muttered.

"I wouldn't say that; I'm not sure girls would make those noises. Your passing out might have been mostly my fault, anyway." Here he grinned evilly. "And remember, that was just one little finger."

"Wouldn't call your fingers 'little'," Watson groused, but the image rose up in his mind just as Sherlock had known it would --

John on his back on the mattress, pelvis raised to rest on Sherlock's thighs, his heels on Sherlock's hips. His lovers erection was buried to the root in his ass. Sherlock was supporting his own weight on one hand; the other was lubricated and socketing John's cock, stroking it firmly. Scratchmarks down Sherlock's chest testified to the intensity of the sensation, as well as the swelling drop of clear fluid dewing the tip of John's dick. He couldn't see his own face here, although his posture was one of complete surrender; Sherlock's expression was one of tenderness, lips pursed, eyes narrowed as his own bliss neared...

Sherlock was watching him again, blushing.

"You do that on purpose," John chided.

"It's fun. Can you blame me?"

"Do you think... you might ever like to be done like that?"

"I don't see why not. I'm at least willing to try it," Holmes said easily, then peered at John. "But the thought makes you uncomfortable... ahhh!" And he started to laugh.

"No no," he managed. "No, that wasn't part of it. That's never been done to me before. Never even attempted."

"You can't fault me for being concerned," Watson said, stung.

"No, I can't," Sherlock murmured fondly, and kissed him. One kiss quickly became several.

"Yes.. let's talk about that..." John purred, hands stroking the column of Sherlock's throat.

"I'll try anything for you," the other man answered shyly. "Anything you want to do."

"Anything? That's a big blank cheque you're handing me."

"I'm not scared of it. Not with you. Not anymore."

John Watson felt a rush of possessive pride that lifted him onto his hands and knees over Sherlock's prone body. *MINE*, he thought. And I am yours: friend, partner, lover, protector, your champion warrior. Finally this guard has something worth guarding.

"Has so much changed in just four days?"

"I had a long time to think, and a lot to think about. No matter what damage I've got in my past... you're here now. I want to be with you."

Sherlock's cat-eyes were calm and replete; his body supine, his hair a tousled pile of silky curls.

"what do you want, Sherlock?"

His lips curved in quiet amusement. "I want you to touch me, John... all over. Even my cock. Especially my cock. And I want you to go down on me, sweet and slow like you did before -- because this time I've got enough light to watch you properly..."

Watson gaped at him.

"Do you know your ears blush too, sometimes?" continued Sherlock, conversationally.

"No. And I didn't know I could get this hard again this quick, either," replied John, trying to match his flippant tone.

"A night full of surprises, then..." And the young man beneath him arched his back, letting the sheet fall away from his legs.

Watson hummed, deep in his chest. "You know I can't resist you."

"Were you trying very hard?"

"Smug bastard."

"*Your* smug bastard."

John gave up all pretense of reticence and pressed their bodies together, feeling the quake of Sherlock's laughter under his kisses. Then he was gasping and John was laughing, trailing lust behind his fingertips like the tail of a comet.

To get back at him (and also to feed his own desire), John took the long way around. He stroked down Sherlock's arms, marveling at the ropey tendons, comparing the sizes of their hands, weaving their fingers together briefly. Then handling his long, finely-boned feet, exploring his insteps with a light but firm touch. Massaging his calves. Running his hands back and forth across the tops of his thighs. Sherlock squirmed.

"I may have misled you," he murmured; John's hands froze where they were, cupping his hips.

"Oh?"

"Words are easy. Sensation is difficult."

"Do you need me to stop?"

"No."

"Look at me." He bound Sherlock in his gaze; the blue-green eyes were shadowed again.

"You know you have the power here. You know you have the power over me, like no one else ever has. I can stop and just hold you, or I can keep going -- your word is law here."

Sherlock shut his eyes. "Could you hold me, and keep going somehow?"

He smiled. "Of course."

After a moment's contemplation, John piled the pillow up behind Sherlock's back to prop him into a reclining position. He lay on his side and pulled one of his lover's long legs over his hip; his arm went under the other. Now he lay between Sherlock's thighs, wrapped around him and cradling him on both sides but with his head and one arm free for mischief. Best of all, Sherlock could look down and see John's face easily.

Sherlock realized it too, for he gave John a tentative smile and caressed his cheek. He folded his legs around John's torso.

"Good?"

"Yes..."

John stroked Sherlock's chest, the line of his jaw, the fluttering curve of his abdomen, trying to calm him as if he were a skittish beast. Sherlock hissed when his fingers twined in the downy fur at the base of his erection; his own hands found the back of John's head and the rise of his shoulder for comfort.

"My love... my love..." John was whispering. The other man watched him through slitted eyes, his expression barely changing when John enclosed the tip of his cock in his wet mouth.

The young doctor hummed deep in his throat and was delighted to watch the goosebumps march up his friend's arms in a brief wave.

The silence in the small flat seemed warm and crowding, pressing the light from the sinking candle closer to them. The little noises of his strokes and of Sherlock's ragged breathing were not strong enough to disperse it.

Watson cataloged all the small signs: the way Sherlock's pelvis seemed to lose some of its tension and become fluid, the tremor in his fingertips, the flush that spread across his angular chest, the way he licked his lips and seemed unaware of doing so.

"Stay slow... it feels so good," he breathed.

He let his head loll back but Watson felt the fingers of Sherlock's right hand lightly drumming an rhythmic tattoo on his shoulder. Familiar, somehow...

-.-- . ...

Morse code: "yes". He repeated it over and over.

He tries so hard to repress his responses to what we do but they keep bursting out. Does he even know that he's doing this?

From his posture one might think Holmes was completely disassociating -- but John could see his limbs trembling, his jaw clenching. His hand in John's hair never stopped its gentle pressure.

J-O-H-N, his fingers tapped, a single heartbeat before the name was driven out of him aloud. "John... oh John... don't stop!"

His lover was more than pleased to continue that easy pace, as inevitable as the tides. Mischievously he tapped back on Sherlock's flank: L-O-V-E

Sherlock gasped, quivering all over.

N-O-W, his fingers asked. Y-E-S, John replied.

Then Sherlock curled up tighter around the parts of John he could reach, head forward and hanging over him, face a picture of pain and bliss, groaning John's name as softly as a prayer... and then devolving into quiet wordless cries as he came.

He hadn't even stopped shuddering when his hands were urging John up to lay atop him, crushed to his chest. His lips were moving; John inched closer to hear the nearly silent litany:

"my John... my John... how I love you..."

Watson smiled and laid his head over the thunder of that deep heartbeat.

After a few minutes the man beneath him sighed languidly and nuzzled the top of his head.

"I don't know if I could ever get used to that..."

"The white?"

"That, and everything along with it. I can't describe it."

"Try for me, though."

He took what was for him a long moment to gather his thoughts. "Terror, and anxiety. An almost crippling fear. I can only stand it because I know you're here. I know you can bring me out safe on the other side.

"And then the dam breaks and in a moment it all converts to joy, and peace, and a physical ecstasy I'd not known possible. And the white wave over my mind... and you are here with me."

At just that moment, the candle sputtered and drowned in the wax puddle on its saucer, plunging the flat into pure dark.

John felt his lover stir uneasily. "Could you turn on a light?" he asked.

The doctor slid out of bed, fumbling ahead of him for the bathroom door to open it just wide enough to insert his arm and flicked the switch.

The slice of sudden brightness illuminated him from behind, turning his short-cropped blond hair into a fire-brand.

"Okay?" he asked, not moving.

*light-bearer... morningstar*, Sherlock's brain murmured. He smiled softly and answered aloud "Perfect."

Warmed by the look Sherlock was giving him he eagerly came back to bed. The other man covered him with his body immediately.

"Now there *was* one more thing I was thinking about..."

"Really now..."

"Mmmhmmm, because it seems like you might have another go in you..."

"Whatever gave you that idea?" he replied coyly, then gasped.

"The signs were unmistakable." Sherlock's hand was loose around his half-erection, sliding slowly up, with just enough friction to arouse and not to cause discomfort.

"You are going to be the literal death of me," breathed Watson.

"Surely not, old man."

"Old man? I'm only four years your senior!"

"And a decade ago, you could have gone all night."

"Perhaps I just need sufficient provocation, then."

Sherlock replied by licking his throat, then nipping at his collarbone.

"Pass me the bottle," he whispered. Then a moment later, "Give me your hands."

Watson reacted irritably to the huge amount of lubricant Sherlock poured into his cupped palms. "Hey, too much! This stuff isn't free, you know."

"Sometimes too much is just right. Get it all over your fingers."

Then he threaded his knee between John's thighs to part them, leading John's slippery hands down. Confusion and irritation turned to lust in a flash when he felt Sherlock lay his hips against him and wrap his fingers around them both.

"Try to hold on, John," he whispered. Then he was up on his knuckles and knees, shoulders like a mountain range over Watson. Gamely he attempted to keep the two slick erections tight against each other in the span of his hands... then Sherlock slowly began to thrust.

John was splayed even wider, hips tilted to bring them fully into contact, feeling Sherlock's lean thighs against his ass with every stroke. In the near dark, this lover's carefully deep breathing was shockingly loud.

The friction in his hands was delicious, different than he'd felt before, different than jacking off alone. The only movement was Sherlock's cock, following that beautiful slow tempo he liked.

Laying prone beneath him, feeling pinned and ravished, almost even impaled -- this was the first time in any of this that John felt anything like female. His position was completely receptive... the feel of Sherlock over him as a powerful masculine presence overwhelmed his nerves.

"Sherlock," he managed.

"Yes... John," he replied, never pausing.

"We'll need to rent a cabin somewhere, far away from people."

Amusement. "Of course, John, but what makes you think of that now?"

John swallowed hard. "Because the next time you do it like this I don't want to be quiet."

"That would be lovely," whispered that velvet voice, lower now, closer to his chest. "Being able to do something like this and hear you cry out loud..."

When Sherlock's lips found his nipple he made a very interesting noise indeed and unleashed a string of expletives no less savage for having to be muttered under his breath.

"Why, Watson!" Sherlock gasped in feigned affront.

"Shut up and fuck me," the other man grated through his clenched teeth.

"Duty calls," answered the maddening angel on top of him.

John tossed his head on the mattress, hips jerking, pleading little sounds escaping him. He wanted to rake his nails down Sherlock's back but he couldn't free his hands. His fever pitched higher when Sherlock lay atop him, long arms snaking underneath his back and shoulders to hold him close, still thrusting.

Oh god he's fucking me, thought John, delirious on lust and amazement. His skin from the top of his head to the hollow of his navel felt as if it was raging with fire. He wrapped his legs around Sherlock, his feet pressing the small of the other man's back.

A hot drop of sweat rolled down Sherlock's forehead, gathered itself at his brow and fell onto John's throat.

Sherlock himself felt as dizzy as if he were flying; as powerful as a falcon in an empty sky.

"Yes, John," he begged him then, for an instant transported beyond any fear or shame or modesty, "yes my love, oh love, come with me, come..." The squirming panting man in his embrace bucked once and then stiffened and shuddered, making high, breathy, broken cries.

Sherlock's control snapped and with a low snarl he let the pleasure have him, feeling their orgasms mix in a hot pool on John's belly. Then the white rose up, cutting off Watson's gasps.

Dimly he realized he had rolled to one side when John released him so as not to crush his lover under his taller frame. He concentrated on breathing, feeling a wave of fondness and elation following after the surge of physical bliss. John. John is taking care of things. He's got the towel already and started cleaning up... now he's holding me again.

He laid a finger over Watson's mouth when he realized he was trying to say something to him. N-O-T-Y-E-T, he tapped over John's heart. W-H-I-T-E.

O-K, John responded on his hipbone.

Sherlock frowned in concentration, his brain still delightfully scattered. Off chasing butterflies somewhere.

S-O-R-R-Y, he added.

He felt John laugh and cradle him closer, kissing his numb lips.

When finally he could hear his own breathing again, he stretched his arms around John in response, kissing his forehead. 

"What I was trying to say was, I actually felt almost like a girl during that."

"Did it bother you?" Sherlock asked seriously.

"No... it was just a bit odd-feeling. Hot as hell, though, although I wouldn't admit it to anyone else. You were so... confident."

"Mmmm. I suppose it was also the first time I felt like a 'man', in all this. Powerful. In control."

"What did you feel like before?"

"Just me. Scared or sad or wanting you: it didn't really have a gender."

"Whatever you may be -- male, female, or something else -- you are mine."

Sherlock smiled again, achingly sweet.

"Sleep with me tonight, John."

"Tonight and every other night you let me. I love you."

Sherlock sighed gently, his eyes filled with emotion.

"I love you."

They left the light on.

**********

Sherlock woke up only twice, in the decadent five hours of sleep he allowed himself. The first was when John got up to use the restroom. He watched John toddle back to bed with slitted eyes, and passed out immediately once the warm arms surrounded him again.

The second, he was being chased by the darkness, dodging it through a lucid nightmare -- when he felt something touch his chest. He flung himself into wakefulness like a startled fish breaching the surface of a lake.

John's hand was stroking his chest gently; from behind him came the sleepy murmur "It's okay, love... I'm here with you... it's okay..."

Sherlock eased his head around to peer over his shoulder. John subsided back into his own dreams.

He didn't even wake up entirely... but he still banished the nightmare.

The rest of Holmes's night was deep and dreamless.

**********

The room was still dark when John Watson finally woke up but he knew he couldn't sleep any longer -- the smell and sound of bacon cooking in the kitchen banished the rest of his fatigue.

Cautiously he wrapped the sheet around him and peered around the door sill into the other room.

"Good timing," said Sherlock, barely turning. "You can have a shower before breakfast if you're quick." The robe seemed to fit but John's spare sleep pants were high on his ankles.

"You don't cook. You never cook," replied John.

"Just because I don't like to doesn't mean I'm unable to. Ten minutes, John."

Suitably instructed, John hurried through a hot shower and sat down in his pajama bottoms at the little kitchen table, still toweling off.

"I also put more money in your wallet," said Holmes conversationally, as if continuing a dialogue they were already having.

"Why are you telling me that now?"

"So that if there was going to be an argument about it, we could finish early and have a peaceful meal," he replied evenly. He turned with two loaded plates and set them on the table with an air of finality.

"Sherlock, I can't take your money."

"Money happens," the other man said, stirring his scrambled eggs idly. They smelled delicious. "When we need money, I'll make it happen. It's not very difficult. You spent a lot of money on food for both of us today. You'd be on short rations until your next cheque comes in, if you don't accept it."

"How do you --"

"I know you. I know everything about you." Sherlock pinned him with a gaze that paused his fork midway to his mouth. "I know your shoe size, hat size, shirt size, pant size, ring size..." Here his look turned frank, eyebrow arching. "I know each and every one of your dimensions. I know your favorite foods, desserts, drinks, movies... I know that you don't like chicken stir-fry very much, but I know you know that I do.

"I know the schedule of your disability pension payments and at any moment of the day I can find out to the decimal place exactly what you've got in your accounts. Accept the money. *Please.*"

"Sherlock, it is *my* money to spend. And I wanted you to stay today and so we'd have to eat. It's not like we can get take-out."

Sherlock ate a bite, swallowing thoughtfully.

"If I happened to be... a husband, for example, and I gave some money to my... spouse, would that still be so objectionable?"

John gaped. "Sherlock... what are you saying?"

"I'm not *saying*; I'm asking a purely rhetorical question." He coughed and looked down at his plate. "Eat your breakfast."

John moved to obey, and underneath the little table stuck his bare foot forward... to have it enclosed between Sherlock's own.

"So you are... staying the day?" he asked after the companionable silence.

"I thought I could, if you have no other plans..."

"Nothing I can't reschedule... and tonight?"

Here Sherlock's eyes darkened. "At full dark we'll have to see if the streetlight's been repaired yet. If they sent out someone intelligent, it could be done quickly."

"I could go out with a wrench..."

Sherlock smiled at him. "If the light's still broken, I can stay most of the night."

"Someday I do hope to see the dawn through with you," answered John wistfully.

"In a a cabin somewhere, far away from people?"

John reached over and took Sherlock's free hand.

"Anywhere. Anywhere at all, with you."

Sherlock closed his long fingers around John's wrist, standing up quickly. "John, come back to bed with me. Right now. Your plate's empty -- if you want more, I'll cook more for you later. I'll do anything you want later, just come back with me now."

"Sherlock? What's gotten into you?" He kept his seat, refusing to be moved.

"I know what I want, right this moment. I want to pull back the quilt and the shade and let the sunlight in. I want to see your body in the light. I want to see... my body... with yours, in the light."

John put on a serious face. "That's fine, Sherlock -- but you'll have to ask me properly."

The other man's expression was a study of confusion. John refused to help, however... but his fingers tapped on the old, scratched surface of the kitchen table.

Sherlock shut his eyes and listened as if his life and soul hung in the balance. John repeated the sequence.

Sherlock met his gaze then, and smiled quietly.

"Come back to bed with me," he crooned, his velvet voice deep with all the emotion he would finally allow himself to feel. "John, come back to bed with me, my love..."

The warrior, heart swelling with joy, followed his bliss out into the light.


End file.
